The present invention broadly relates to transport installations or arrangements, and, more particularly, to a new and improved construction of a track installation or arrangement for the vehicles of a cable transport installation, especially a revolving aerial cable or cableway transport installation, sometimes also referred to in the art as an aerial ropeway transport installation.
Generally speaking, the track installation or arrangement for the vehicles of a transport installation, especially a revolving aerial cable or cableway transport installation as contemplated by the present development is of the type comprising a track or track line system, sometimes briefly simply referred to herein as a track, upon which there are supported the carriages of the travelling or mobile vehicles. Such track comprises an inbound side and an outbound side for the vehicles as well as a conveyor or conveyor device operatively associated with the track. The conveyor is provided with entrainment members for coaction with the vehicles for travelling or mobile entrainment thereof.
In the case of aerial cable or cableway transport installations designed as revolving or endless gondola cable transport installations, it is known in this technology to accommodate or correlate the plurality of vehicles which are in circulation or in their revolving transport mode to the momentary transport capacity requirements. This is accomplished for the purpose of saving drive energy and to reduce the wear of the aerial cable transport installation. To that end, those vehicles which are momentarily not required to be placed in use are parked or stationed at side tracks or parking tracks which are operatively associated with at least one of the stations of the aerial cable transport installation. These sidetracks or parking tracks are connected by switches with the station main track of the aerial cable transport installation. The parking tracks are generally deployed within the building structure of the station or at a parking area thereof in order to protect the vehicles against effects of the climate or environment. As concerns the course or layout of the track structure or line there are known to the art installations in which one end of the parking track which forms a number of interconnected loops is associated or connected with the disembarking side of the station main track and the other end with the embarking side of the station main track. The vehicles are manually pushed or displaced onto the parking track.
A track installation of the type generally described above at the outset of this disclosure has become known in this art. Viewed in the lengthwise profile or section of such track installation the parking track comprises a plurality of successive ascending and descending track sections or portions. A chain conveyor is operatively associated with each of the ascending track sections or portions. Each such chain conveyor takes over the vehicles at the end of a descending section and transports such vehicles to the starting region of the next following ascending track section or portion. The inclination of the descending track section is selected such that the vehicles negotiate the same by virtue of their inherent weight.
However, practical experience has shown that in such prior art system the unavoidable differences in the rolling friction of the individual vehicle carriages, something also attributable to the encountered weather or climatic conditions, leads to different rolling behavior of the vehicle carriages. This in turn, results in disturbances in the operation of the aerial cable transport installation which then must be eliminated by the operating personnel. There also result, under circumstances, even damage to successive vehicles, in this case the gondolas, which run into one another or become jammed in one another.
Additionally, a fundamental drawback of such prior art track installation resides in the fact that the structural or erection costs of the track installation are appreciably increased. During the computation of the internal height of the building or building structure which houses the track installation there must be added to the vehicle height the excess height of the parking track between the lowest point and the highest point of the lengthwise section of the parking track. This increase in height also has a pronounced effect upon the volume of the building, particularly when it is appreciated that such track installation, even if optimumly designed, occupies an appreciable surface area.